What were we talking about? By Deb Eve

Well, I almost made it through the entire Debutante Ball year without the embarrassment of having absolutely NOTHING to say about the topic at hand. Almost that is. Until today. Because I’ve got very few thoughts on what books I’d want to have with me if I were stuck on a deserted island. I don’t usually re-read books – no matter how much I love them. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m an ENFP – which makes me the kind of person who’s usually onto the next thing before I’m even done with the … wow, would you look at that pretty bird outside my window. I wish I could fly. If I could fly I’d probably never hit traffic going down to visit my mom in Delaware. Did you know Delaware was the first state, except I don’t think it was really the FIRST, just the first to ratify the … wait, what were we talking about?

Oh, yeah, books that I’d want to re-read. I did get to the end of Amy Tan’s The Hundred Secret Senses and – for the one and only time in my life – go immediately back to the beginning to re-read it to see exactly how she did that! Because I really loved that book. It takes place in China and oh, man I love Chinese food. I especially love Dim Sum at those funky restaurants in Chinatown where you don’t actually know what they’re serving you. I once ate guinea pig. My brother had a pet guinea pig when we were kids. He lives in Taiwan now. My brother, not the guinea pig. The guinea pig is long gone. It’s really true that guinea pigs can’t swim. Taiwan just got slammed by a huge typhoon. And Japan just had another earthquake. Damn, I love sushi!

Oh, wait, we were talking about books that I’d want to have on a desert island. If I were on a desert island, I would definitely want to have a bandana and dental floss. A bandana can save your life if you plunge down the side of a mountain in a fiery bus crash and survive, but need a tourniquet to stem the bleeding. Plus, you can use it for toilet paper in a pinch. The dental floss? That’d be good for getting the lobster out from between your teeth. (They will be having lobster on this desert island, won’t they?)

Oh, yeah … books I’d want to have with me on a desert island? Clearly, I have no idea. You tell me. Give me your suggestions of all the classics that a well-read author should have read. (If I was supposed to have read them in high school or college, it’s a pretty safe bet that I didn’t.) I’ll go out and buy them and pack them away in my DESERT ISLAND EMERGENCY KIT – right next to my bandana and dental floss.

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I’m suddenly thinking of the HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY which explains of course the absolute necessity of having a towel with you at all times while traveling the galaxy. Those books I’m sure were not required reading, but they ARE really funny, so you could bring those…

Hi ladies,
Just to let you know…if you ever are in the midst of a conversation between the Brown siblings (and mother)…with some other “quick thinkers”…you might break your neck…just trying to keep up with the exchange of ideas and topics, that to the uninitiated might seem to have no connection what so ever, but the do, trust me they do. I believe it is called PCD, Pathological Creative Disorder. I just made that up.

Now I don’t know if this is kosher, but I have to kvell about the other writer I produced, Joshua Samuel Brown, was just named a 2009 Fellow by the Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Foundation. I love sushi too.